II. neffes, most bloody violences, oppreffions, and rapines s E R M. generally abounding. So that for thofe men themfelves, who were by turns, as it happened, the authors and the objects of thefe dealings, it could not be defirable to continue in a state of living fo wretched and uncomfortable. Impunity had been no mercy to fuch people, but rather a cruelty; cutting them off muft needs be the greateft favour they were capable of, it being only removing them from a hell here, and preventing their deferving many worse hells hereafter. Even to themfelves it was a favour, and a greater one to their pofterity, whom they might have brought forth to fucceed in their courses, and to the confequences of them; whom they would have engaged into their wicked cuftoms, and their woful mifchiefs. They were not fo deftroyed from the land, until it grew uninhabitable in any tolerable manner, and itself could not, as it were, endure them any longer, but (as the text doth moft fignificantly exprefs it) did fpue them out; being like a stomach furcharged Levit. xviii. with foul, or poisonous matter, which it loaths, and 28. is pained with, and therefore naturally labours to expel. Neither was this fad doom executed upon them till after four hundred years of forbearance; for even in Abraham's time God took notice of their iniquity, then born and growing; and gave account of his fufpending their punishment; because, faid he, the ini- Gen. xv. quity of the Amorites was not yet full (that is, was not 16. yet arrived to a pitch of defperate obftinacy and incorrigibility): while there was the least glimpse of hope, the least relicks of any reason, any regret, any fhame in them, the leaft poffibility of recovery, God ftopped his avenging hand: but when all ground of hope was removed, the whole ftock of natural light and strength was embezzled, all fear, all remorfe, all modefty were quite banished away, all means of cure had proved ineffectual, the gangrene of vice had feized on every part, iniquity was grown mature and mellow; then was the ftroke of juftice indeed not II. SER M. more seasonable than neceffary; then was the fatal fword the only proper remedy; then fo with one ftroke to cut off them, and their fins, and their mifchiefs, and their miferies together, was an argument no less strong and clear of God's merciful goodnefs, than of his juft anger toward them. IV. The like account we may render of God's judgments upon the people of Ifrael. If we confult the Prophets, who declare the ftate of things, the facts, the difpofitions, the guilts, that brought them down from Heaven, we fhall fee, that they came upon account of an univerfal apoftacy from both the faith and Hof. ix. 9. practice of true religion; a deep corruption (like that in the days of Gibeah, as the prophet Hofea fpeaketh) in mind and manners; an utter perverting of all truth and right; an obftinate compliance with, or emulation of, the most abominable practices of the heathen nations about them; an univerfal apoftacy, I fay, from God and all goodness; a thorough prevalence of all iniquity. Hear the Prophets expreffing it, and deJer. v.1. fcribing them. Jeremiah; Run ye to and fro through the fireets of ferufalem; fee now, and know, and feek in the broad places thereof; if ye can find a man; if there be any that executeth judgment, that feeketh the truth, If. xxiv. 5. and I will pardon it. Ifaiah; The earth is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have tranfgreffed the laws, changed the ordinances, broken the everlasting covenant: Ab finful nation! a people laden with iniquities, a feed of evil doers; children that are corrupters! They have forfaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Ifrael unto anger; they are gone away backward, &c. Thus do thefe and other Prophets in a like ftrain defcribe in the grofs the ftate of things preceding Ezek. xxii. thofe judgments. And in Ezekiel (in divers places, particularly in the 8th, but especially in the 22d chapter) we have their offences in detail, and by parts (their grofs impieties, their grievous cruelties, extortions, and oppreffions) fet out copiously, and in moft lively colours. And as the quality of their provoca i. 4. II. xxxii. 33. tions was fo bad, and the extenfion of them fo large, fo s E R M. was their condition defperate; there were no means of remedy left, no hopes of amendment; fo was their forehead covered with impudence, their heart hardened with obftinacy, their minds deeply tinctured with habitual pravity and perverfenefs: Can the Ethiopian Jer. xiii, change his fkin, or the leopard his fpots? then may ye alfo 23. do good that are accustomed to do evil, faith Jeremiah concerning them. All methods of reclaiming them had proved fruitlefs; no favourable dealings, no gentle admonition, or kind instruction would avail any thing; for it is of them the prophet Ifaiah faith, Let Ifa. xxvi. favour be fhewed to the wicked, yet will be not learn 10. righteoufnefs. No advices, no reproofs (how frequent, how vehement, how urgent foever) had any effect upon them. Almighty God declares often, that he had spoken unto them rifing up early, but they would not hear nor regard his fpeech; did not only neglect, and refuse, but defpife, loath, mock, and re- Jer. xxv. 4. proach it (turning their back upon him, pulling away their vi. 10. fhoulder, fiffening their neck, and stopping their ears, that Zech. vii. they fhould not hear), that he had fpread out his hands all Neh. ix. 29, the day long to a rebellious and gainfaying people; to a 30. people that (with extreme infolence and immodefty) 2 Chron. provoked him to anger continually to his face. Nor could xxxvi. 16. any tenders of mercy allure or move them: I faid Jer. iii. 7. (God faid it in Jeremiah) after all these things, Turn vii. 3. iv. 1, unto me; but he returned not. Amend your ways and xxvi. 13. your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will repent him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your tranfgreffions, fo iniquity fhall not be your ruin; and innumerable the like overtures we have of grace and mercy to them; all which they proudly and perverfely rejected, perfifting in their wicked courfes: they even repelled and filenced, they rudely treated Jer. xi. 21. and perfecuted the prophets fent unto them with xxxii. 30. meffages of kind warning, and overtures of grace; fo 37. obftructing all accefs of mercy to themfelves: They C 4 II. Ifa. lxv. 2. fay 14. xviii. II. Matt. xxiii. Ezek. xv 10. 51. 17, &c. (Neh. ix. 29.) v. 3. Jer. ii. 30. Rom. ix. 22. SERM. fay to the feers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophefy II. not unto us right things: fo Ifaiah reports their proceeding. Which of the prophets did not your fathers perfecute? fo St. Stephen expoftulates with them. Acts vii. Neither were gentler chastisements defigned for their correction and cure anywise available; they made no impreffion on them, they produced no change in Ifa. i. 16, them: In vain, faith God, I have fmitten your children, they have received no correction. And, Thou haft fmitten them, but they have not grieved; thou haft confumed them, but they have refused to receive correction; they have made their faces harder than a rock, they have refused to return. And, The people turneth not to him that smiteth them, neither do they feek the Lord of Hofts. Unto this nalagtioμòs eis anλav, this perfect fitness (as St. Paul fpeaketh), this maturity of defperate and irrecoverable impiety, had that people grown, not at once, and on a fudden, but by continual fteps of provocation, through a long courfe of time, during that divine patience fparing them, and by various expedients ftriving to recover them. This confideration is frequently infifted upon, efpecially in the prophet Jeremiah: The children of Ifrael and the children of Judah have only done evil before me from their youth: Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day, I have even fent unto you all my fervants the prophets, daily rifing up early, and fending them; yet they hearkened not unto me, &c. Well then, after fo many hundred years of abused patience, and unfuccessful labour to reclaim them, it was needful that juftice fhould have her courfe upon them: yet how then did God inflict it, with what mildnefs and moNeh. ix. 31. deration, with what pity and relenting? Nevertheless (say they in Nehemiah) for thy great mercies fake thou didft not utterly confume them, nor forfake them; for thou Ezr. ix. 13. art a gracious and merciful God. And, Thou haft punifhed us less than our iniquities deferve, doth Ezra Hof. xi. 9. confefs. I will not execute the fierceness of my anger, doth God himself refolve and declare in Hofea. So Jer. xxxii. 30. vii. 25: xvi. 12. xi. 7. Ezr. ix. 7. 20. II. mild he was as to the measure of his punishing; and S ER M. what compaffion accompanied it, those pathetical expreffions declare: My heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. Is Ephraim my dear fon, Jer. xxxi. is be a pleafant child? for fince I fpake against him, I do earneftly remember him ftill, therefore my bowels are troubled for him. In all their afflictions he was afflicted, Ifa. Ixiii. 9. &c. We may add, that notwithstanding all these provocations of his wrath, and abufings of his patience, which thus neceffitated God to execute his vengeance; yet even during the execution thereof, and while his hand was fo ftretched forth against them, he did retain thoughts of favour and intentions of doing good, even toward this fo ungrateful, fo infenfible, to incorrigible a people: For a fmall time, Ifa. liv. 7. faith God, have I forfaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee: I know the thoughts that I think Jer. xxix. toward you, faith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of 11. xxxiii. evil, to give you an expected end. Now these things being ferioufly laid together, have we not occafion and ground fufficient even in this inftance, no less to admire and adore the wonderful benignity, mercy, and patience of God, than to dread and tremble at his justice? 6,7. V. As for the laft fo calamitous and piteous deftruction of Jerufalem, with the grievous confequences thereof, as we might apply thereto the former confiderations, fo we shall only obferve what was peculiar in that cafe; that God difpenfed fuch means to prevent it (to remove the meritorious caufes thereof, obftinate impenitency and incredulity; refifting the truth by him fent from heaven with fo clear a revelation and powerful confirmation; defpifing the spirit of God, and the dictates of their own confcience; bafely mifufing divers ways, and at last cruelly murdering the fon of God); fuch means, I fay, God did employ for the removing those provocatives of vengeance, which (as our Lord himself faith) were fufficient to have converted Tyre and Sidon; yea, to Matt. xi. have 21. |